A major gas broker wrote in his annual report for 1985: "Mediocre is the qualification that comes to one's mind when trying to define the LPG shipping market in 1985. It was mediocre not only due to the freight rates achieved by all ships of all sizes, which remained as low as in 1984, but mainly as no noticeable event occurred that could have had a positive impact."

The situation has not improved since. In this situation any shipowner must run his ships as economically and efficiently as possible. This means among other things that he has to utilise the maximum transport capacity of his ship in order to carry an optimal payload. The International Gas Carrier Code (IGC Code, Ref.2) imposes restrictions which may reduce the loading limits of cargo tanks to values as low as 80% instead of the 98% which is the maximum filling limit permitted by the Code. A system recently developed by LGA Gastechnik makes it possible to load the cargo tanks to 98% under almost all loading conditions. In many cases this may give the owner the chance to carry the extra payload which he requires to survive in a highly competitive market.

This paper describes the regulatory background to the introduction of a new system that will allow higher loading and then goes on to describe the system itself.

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